Tips on Health:The Benefits Of Adding Whole Grains To Diet

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Greetings…

There are so many health benefits adding whole grain foods in
to your diet. Whole grains haven’t had their bran and germ
removed by milling, making them better sources of fiber.

Whole grains are particularly rich in complex carbohydrates
which help keep the body energized through the whole day.
Complex carbohydrates may have a positive effect on weight
control.

Read more below on the great benefits from whole grains.

Enjoy today’s issue…

Be Well,
Kris

HEALTH TIP: Whole Grains…Health Benefits

Scientific evidence shows that the benefits of whole grain
really add up. Including whole grain as part of a healthy
diet may:

* Lead to a healthier heart. Heart-healthy diets rich
in whole grain foods can reduce the risk of heart
disease.
* Help reduce the risk of certain types of cancers.
Regular consumption of whole grains as part of a
low-fat diet reduces the risk for some cancers,
especially cancers of the stomach and colon.
* Play a role in diabetes management. Making healthy
choices, like including whole grain foods, is
recommended as part of a diabetic diet by The
American Diabetes Association.
* Help keep you regular and your digestive tract
running smoothly. Fiber from whole grains promotes
regularity and keeps the intestines working smoothly
to help maintain good digestive health.
* Help fill you up, not out, especially as you age. A
growing body of evidence supports that people who eat
more whole grain tend to have healthier body weights
and gain less weight over time than those who don’t.
This can be important for long-term weight management.

The health benefits of whole grains can’t be pinpointed to
one particular component of the grain — it’s the “whole
grain package” that makes the difference.

Heart’s helical band motion studied

PASADENA, Calif., — U.S. scientists say they’ve created,
for the first time, images of the heart’s muscular layer and
the link between it and the way the heart contracts. Cali-
fornia Institute of Technology researchers say their findings
could help create a road map for future cardiac surgical
techniques. The researchers showed the muscular band that
wraps around the inner chambers of the heart in a helix is
actually a sort of “twisting highway” along which each con-
traction of the heart travels. “The heart twists to push
blood out the same way you twist a wet towel to wring water
out of it,” said Professor Morteza Gharib, who led the study.
Using a new imaging technique pioneered by Han Wen and
colleagues at the National Institutes of Health, Gharib
and Abbas Nasiraei Moghaddam created some of the first dyn-
amic images of normal myocardium — the middle muscular
layer of the heart wall — in action at the tissue level.
“We tagged and traced small tissue elements in the heart,
and looked at them in space, so we could see how they moved
when the heart contracts,” Gharib said. “In this way, we
were able to see where the maximum physical contraction
occurs in the heart and when, and to show that it follows
this intriguing helical loop.” The research appeared in
the December issue of Heart and Circulatory Physiology.

Govt. considers ‘right of conscience’ rule

WASHINGTON, — U.S. health officials say a new “right of
conscience” rule will likely be announced by the outgoing
Bush administration. The Los Angeles Times reported the
rule will allow doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other
healthcare workers to refuse to participate in procedures
they find morally objectionable, such as abortion. The rule
could even be extended to include artificial insemination
and birth control, the newspaper said Tuesday. A draft of
the rule said the “right of conscience” would cover more
employees than current federal law, which says doctors and
nurses may refuse to perform abortions. It would apply to
healthcare workers who don’t want to provide information or
advice about abortion, or even the employees whose job it
is to clean the instruments. The U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services said the rule would apply to any facility
that receives federal money, which includes 4,800 hospitals,
234,000 doctor’s offices and 58,000 pharmacies.

FDA forms partnership with WebMD

WASHINGTON, — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and
WebMD say they are collaborating in expanding consumers’
access to the federal agency’s health database. m”We are
enthusiastic about this collaboration with WebMD because
it will enable us to reach more consumers with accurate,
science-based information that can help them improve their
health,” Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach of the FDA said. “This
is an important step forward in our effort to form partner-
ships to help bring timely safety alerts and other public
health information to a wider audience in the most effective
and convenient way.” The FDA said WebMD attracts nearly 50
million unique visitors each month, providing consumers
with health news and information. The partnership includes
creation of an online consumer health information resource
on WebMD.com (www.webmd.com/fda) through which people can
access information on the safety of FDA-regulated products,
including food, medicine and cosmetics. The terms of the
FDA-WebMD partnership are available at:
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/ohrms/advdisplay.cfm.

Radiologists treat self-embedding disorder

CHICAGO, — U.S. radiologists say they’re using minimally
invasive, image-guided treatment to remove foreign objects
self-embedded by teenagers. A study, presented Wednesday at
the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North
America, is the first to report on an emerging condition
called self-embedding disorder, the organization said in a
news release. William E. Shiels II, chief of the Department
of Radiology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus,
Ohio, said self-embedded objects include needles, staples,
paper clips, wood, stone, glass, pencil lead and crayons.
The objects were embedded in the arms, ankles, feet, hands
and neck. The study looked at 19 episodes of self-embedding
injury in 10 teenage girls. Interventional pediatric radiolo-
gists used ultrasound to find embedded foreign objects that
were then removed through small incisions in the skin, the
report said.

Eat Grapefruit for Healthy Gums

While it is known that citric acids can weaken tooth enamel
and can cause tooth erosion, a new study shows a different
take on vitamin C and oral health. Performed by Friedrich
Schiller University in Germany, the study reported that
eating grapefruit every day may help reduce bleeding gums
and help promote the healing of gum disease.

Researchers had 58 volunteers with chronic gum disease eat
two grapefruits a day and found that it had a positive
effect on gum disease; this was true for smokers and non-
smokers. The researchers believe this is due to the increase
in vitamin C, which promotes healing of wounds. Each
grapefruit contains over 90 mg of vitamin C.

The study was published in the British Dental Journal. If
Vitamin C is the main component of healing bleeding gums,
we are left to wonder if oranges and vitamin C supplements
have the same affect.

Snoring Burns Extra Calories While You Sleep

For those of us who snore, “saw logs,” “cut zzzs,” or do what
is medically known as stertor, there may be a little more peace
in knowing that you are actually burning more calories than
those who rest quietly! Snoring is very common among adults
and most predominate in men and people who are overweight.

Snoring noises may be soft or loud, raspy or harsh, as well
as hoarse or fluttering. Your significant other may take
notice of you sleeping with your mouth open and attest to your
being restless while sleeping. Snoring can interfere with your
or your bed partner’s sleep, causing either or both of you to
feel tired during the day.

Snoring occurs when something blocks the flow of air through
your mouth and nose. Tissues at the top of your airway coming
into contact with each other and vibrating are the cause of
the noise. The intensity of snoring is known to increase with
age. About 45 percent of adults snore occasionally, with 25
percent being considered habitual snorers. Many habitual
snorers require medical assistance to get a good night’s rest.

Heavy snoring can be a sign of a more serious problem, such
as sleep apnea, a condition that has been linked to
cardiovascular problems and high blood pressure. Sleep apnea
is a disorder that can cause a person to temporarily stop
breathing while at rest.

However, the trade off for those who suffer from sawing
those logs is that researchers have discovered that people
with the worst sleep apnea symptoms actually burn 373 more
calories daily than those with either mild symptoms of the
condition or those who suffer no symptoms at all. The
researchers theorize that this may be due to changes in the
nervous system that are triggered by the condition.

During a study to determine a possible link between weight
gain and sleep apnea, scientists measured the number of
calories burned “at rest” by 212 patients. All of the study
participants suffered from sleep apnea or some other
sleeping-related condition. However, not only was no
association between obesity and apnea found by the study,
but participants with severe apnea symptoms were found to
have burned 1,999 calories compared to those with the
mildest version having burned only 1,626 on average. The
study was lead by Dr. Eric Kezirian, director of the
division of sleep surgery at the University of California,
San Francisco, who noted, “It’s something of a silver
lining.” The findings of the study were published in the
journal Archives of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.

According to Dr. Kezirian, although the general difference
in energy expended isn’t vast, it may cumulatively help
some patients lose weight. However, the downside is that
the increase in metabolism that accompanies severe sleep
apnea has side effects, such as high blood pressure as
well as an increased risk of stroke and heart attack.

The catch here is that one of the major risk factors for
snoring and the development of sleep apnea in the first
place is obesity. The study authors write, “Obesity is a
major risk factor for the development of sleep-disordered
breathing, and changes in body weight are associated with
changes in sleep-disordered breathing severity.” However,
the authors also note that the cause of this is not known:
“It is unclear whether weight gain is simply a cause of
sleep-disordered breathing or whether sleep-disordered
breathing may be associated with alterations in energy
metabolism that, in turn, lead to weight gain and complicate
the treatment of these two disorders that often coexist.”

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